FACT CHECK: Image of infrastructure used to campaign for Tinubu is from Indonesia   

Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Digital Communications, Bashir Ahmed, tweeted images of infrastructural facilities on Thursday, December 8, alongside a picture of the All Progressives Congress Presidential (APC) Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and a text portraying Tinubu’s achievements when he was Lagos State governor. Ahmed, who shared the post on his official Twitter […]

Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Digital Communications, Bashir Ahmed, tweeted images of infrastructural facilities on Thursday, December 8, alongside a picture of the All Progressives Congress Presidential (APC) Candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and a text portraying Tinubu’s achievements when he was Lagos State governor.

Ahmed, who shared the post on his official Twitter handle, @BashirAhmad, ascribed the images toTinubu’s legacy projects.

One of the images contained a quote which read, “I built a modern state that could be a country on its own. I have led an administration that was so prudent from N600m IGR to N58bn a month. That’s a record nobody else can brag about.”

The text which was alluded to have been taken from Tinubu’s interview with the BBC during his visit to the Chatham House, London, had so far garnered about 3,000 likes, 1,000 retweets and comments.

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Verification

Daily Trust subjected the image to a verification using Google Image Reverse Search which showed the original location of the image to be Bundaran hotel, in Jakarta Indonesia.

Indonesia, is a country located off the coast of mainland Southeast Asia in the Indian and Pacific oceans.

The image tweeted by the presidential aid suggested that it emanated from Lagos to show how Tinubu transformed the state infrastructure wise.

Daily Trust findings revealed that Bundaran Hotel Indonesia or Bundaran Hotel is strategically located in the heart of Jakarta, right in the center of Jakarta’s main avenue.

The hotel serves as a gateway for visitors of Jakarta. The roundabout features a round pond with fountain.

Verdict: The image is misleading.

Conclusion: Checks by Daily Trust indicated that the image depicted as Tinubu’s infrastructural project in Lagos is misleading as it was traced to Indonesia not Lagos. As such the claim is false and misleading.

Claim 2: In the second image, Tinubu also claimed to have tamed the surge from the Atlantic Ocean which would have destroyed Lagos.

The statement reads, “I have treated and tamed the Atlantic Ocean surge in Nigeria that would have perished many people in Lagos.”

Verification

Checks by Daily Trust that the Tinubu-led administration in Lagos embarked on reclamation of lands submerged by water.  However, that move has been criticised by environmentalists who observed that water path has been encroached, hence increasing incidences of flooding in the state.

In fact only recently, the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF) raised the alarm that Lagos and other coastal cities that are less than one metre above the sea level could be submerged by 2050 if the surge from the Atlantic Ocean continues.

NCF’s submission corroborates a projection made by the United Nations scientists working on climate change, who after extensive studies predicted that there is the likelihood of the world’s oceans rising by one metre between 2030 and 2050.

Consequently, cities like Lagos that are less than one metre above the sea level are under threat of submergence.

Further checks by Daily Trust also showed that the Lagos State Government two years back worried by the high incidence of ocean surge on its coastline, reportedly earmarked N36 billion to tackle the surge.

The funds, Daily Trust learnt, were meant for the construction of 18 groynes (sea breakers), at intervals of 40 meters between Goshen Estate and Alpha Beach estimated to cost N2 billion.

Verdict: False

Conclusion: The surge from the Atlantic Ocean has not been tamed and Lagos still experiences flooding coming from the ocean.

 

Claim 3: In the third image posted by Ahmed, Tinubu said, “The infrastructure renewal of Lagos is excellent.”

Verification: Infrastructure is one the major benchmarks for measuring development anywhere in the world. To verify the claim, Daily Trust sought to ascertain the status of Lagos state among cities of the world to see if its infrastructure and other indices of living are “excellent” as Tinubu claimed.

According to a data compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU), Lagos State has been ranked 139 out of 140 in the list of worst liveable cities in the world in the first quarter of 2021. This makes Lagos the second-worst city to live in the world today.

According to the data, Lagos is only next to Damascus, Syria as the worst city to live in the world, and worse than Algiers (Algeria) and Tripoli (Libya).

In ranking the cities, the report focuses on five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

The EIC explained that “the concept of liveability is simple: it assesses which locations around the world provide the best and worst living conditions. Assessing liveability has a broad range of uses, from bench-marking perceptions of development levels to assigning a hardship allowance as part of expatriate relocation packages.”

“City officials and urban policymakers can use the rankings to benchmark target cities against the top-ranked cities. The ratings can help them to understand the gap between target cities and the best-ranked cities across different categories. This in turn should help to frame policies and target investors,” it added.

It is also worthy of note that Lagos is dotted by slums, many of which lack basic infrastructural facilities.

Verdict: False

Conclusion: Relying on verifiable data which ranked Lagos as one of the worst cities to live in, it can be concluded that the assertion that Lagos has an ‘excellent’ infrastructure is false.

 

This Fact Check is produced in partnership with the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD)